by J. S. Morin
I checked all around where my hand had strayed under my shadow’s control.
The shadowblood lore was a bit thin on the relationship between a sentient shadow and its host. Fan theories hinted that they represented the host’s dark impulses, and it required a certain degree of repression for those impulses to manifest.
Had I really not been in control of my actions, or was my mind protecting me from remembering them?
“There’s a bit below your ear, by the jawline.”
Kelly swore softly and ran the hot water again. Soaking brown paper towels, she scrubbed the area I indicated. A follow-up check declared her to be clean.
Then she stripped off her shirt and crumpled it into a ball, folding the collar area to ensure it was inside. I quickly turned to look away.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just… well, there’s droplets of that asshole’s blood, and I’m not going to bother trying to wash it out.”
“You need me to shop?” I asked. There might be funny looks for a guy shopping alone and paying for women’s clothes with hundred-dollar bills. Given the events of the night, I could stomach the embarrassment.
“Nah, I’ve got a spare.” Kelly gave a noisy shiver. I listened for the rustle of fabric to stop so I’d know it was safe to look.
“You know,” Kelly said. “For a guy who just murdered a shadowblood and chased off two others, it’s kinda cute that you’re a prude.”
I chuckled uneasily. “Listen. When we get back, we can’t tell anyone, OK?”
Kelly’s grin looked genuine. “Your roommates probably already know.”
“No! Not the prude thing.”
“You mean the murder? I think that kinda went without saying. It’s sort of a body-dumping pact that comes standard.”
I sighed. “No, not that, either. I’m with you on keeping quiet about the murder. Of course I am. I mean about letting my shadow take control. Tim’s already getting edgy about shadow taint, and I think Judy’s worried about me.”
“Miss Perfect, the one who’d rather moderate the shadowblooded.com forums than come game with us?”
“She doesn’t do well in crowds.”
Kelly cocked her head and started redoing her braids. “There’s five of us.”
I shrugged.
“I’m serious, though. Promise to keep this between you and me, and I’ll do what I can with your shadow.”
Kelly looked me square in the eye, and I pulled my sunglasses down. I could be flippant at times, and I needed her to know this wasn’t one of them.
A sly smirk crept into the corner of her mouth. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed—wrongly—that she was coming onto me. That predatory gleam in her eye screamed sex until she told me what she was really after. “No. Right now. You’re on a do-or-die mission, and if you die, I don’t want to get stiffed.”
“Nice that you’re worried about my safety…”
“Is it a deal, or do we have an intervention when we get back to the hideout?”
“Ooh,” my shadow taunted. “She’s got you now. Those friends of yours will drag you to the vigilants if they knew what you were capable of. They’d be wrong, of course. You’re an artist, not a warrior at heart. If you can’t decide, allow me a moment, and I’ll solve it for you. You can tell the others that your nemesis got her.
“Or…” it continued. “You could counter-offer. She could do things that would make it worth your while. I don’t think she’d mind half as much as you imagine…”
Who was in control here? Me or the shadow that haunted me?
I needed allies, preferably ones who were flesh and blood.
“Deal.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
With an urgent need to get off the streets, I convinced a reluctant Kelly to hold off on untethering her shadow until we got back to the hideout.
By now it was stupidly late. Grudging wakefulness swept over the rest of the crew who didn’t wait up for us. Exhaustion wouldn’t stay at bay forever, and the air mattresses that Simon and Reggie had scrounged up beckoned with a siren’s call.
I stumbled into the men’s room, toothbrush in hand, ready to call it a night.
Without little electronic power indicators providing pinpricks of light, it was pitch black. Somewhere in my head, I knew I shouldn’t be able to see anything at all. But instead, I could make out details that I might have missed in perfect lighting. The dust had a texture to it; the filmy residue on the mirrors was streaked from a slapdash attempt at wiping clean.
I had no reflection in the mirror; it was the first instance where I grudgingly gave light a tick mark for a win. But I was using a toothbrush, not a scalpel; I didn’t exactly need to see what I was doing.
The bathroom door opened, and the lights snapped on. The cheap florescent glare hit my eyes like a hangover sunrise.
“Gah, what the—?” I mumbled through a mouthful of toothpaste suds.
“Sorry,” Kelly said, letting the door swing closed behind her. “I just wanted to catch you alone.”
I spat and rinsed my mouth with a quick handful of water from the tap. “Brilliant plan. What part of ‘men’s room’ confused you?”
“Jesus, Matt. It’s a stick figure on a sign. It’s not like the door is warded. Actually, I think the little stick man would keep Judy out. We need to talk.”
“Can’t it wait until morning?” I begged. Since the last time I’d slept, there had been a jailbreak, a chase through Boston, and a murder, complete with dumping a body.
Kelly smirked and leaned back against the door. “It is morning. Just really early.” She showed me her phone. It claimed that Boston was 43 degrees and sunny, and that it was 4:37 AM.
“I mean sunrise, then.” That would buy me a couple hours at best.
“Convince my shadow to serve me,” she said, putting away her phone and crossing her arms.
“Tonight. I promise.”
“What if we get attacked in the night? You’re going to need backup.”
I gave her a skeptical look. “I think I’m going to need someone with more than a day’s experience.” He pointedly ignored that he had just learned of his own shadow.
“Better than you dying and never making good on your promise,” she shot back.
I rinsed off my toothbrush and left it on the countertop. “So that’s what this is about. You think I’m going to get myself killed by those subway thugs.”
“Sooner or later,” Kelly replied with an insouciant grin.
“…and you won’t get to turn shadowblood?”
She had the bathroom door blocked.
There was a gap underneath that could let light—or shadow—pass. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to run in the little office. Kelly could pick up the conversation in my conference bedroom or anywhere else I tried to sleep.
If I wanted to stay in the office and guard everyone else, she had me trapped.
“What are you worried about?” she asked. “I’m not going to get tricked by my shadow. No one who’s read the books would be that stupid. I’ll wear it down with Alkov’s eight arguments until I control it.”
“Hasn’t done me any good.” Alkov’s arguments were meant for a shadow that refused to serve. They didn’t account for a clever and deceitful shadow that was more than happy to help.
“Is it that you want to impress Judy?” Kelly asked with a sneer. “Be the big hero and she’ll swoon eventually? You had Tim out of the way—”
“And I rescued him.”
“…and now you’re top dog, Chosen One, prophet and world-saver. That’s gotta get a guy laid, right? Tell me I’m wrong.”
The words were lead on my tongue.
Tim and I lived in the same house, and he was all but oblivious.
Kelly and Judy hadn’t even met until the other day, and she had the puzzle pieced together clearer than I was comfortable with anyone seeing it.
“I’m not any kind of chosen one. I’m damn well not a prophet. Shadowblood’s a story, e
ven if it’s true. Predicting plot twists is a skill; half that forum Judy runs does it at least as good as I do. I just happened to be the one in Martinez’s creative writing class who tried to impress her with fan-fic—like an idiot.”
“Even better. You’re no one special, running around a city waiting to stumble in a trap. Those ‘subway thugs’ want what you’ve got, and they were willing to fight for it. You need backup.”
I was too tired to be making life-altering decisions. Not for me. Not for anyone else.
That allure of oblivious, exhausted sleep was about fifty feet away, on a shitty twin-sized air mattress that still reeked of plastic. My options were to shadow-jump Kelly out of the building and leave her there, possibly to get killed, to continue arguing until she gave up, or to just go ahead and try waking her shadow.
“Turn off the lights.”
Kelly’s grin sparkled. Those perfect teeth were the last thing I saw in the light before she flipped the switch. “So when it happens, I’ll be able to see when it’s this dark?”
“Let’s just say that you aren’t likely to be eaten by any grues,” I replied. “But I don’t know if it’s going to be immediate. I’ve never done this before. When mine started yapping at me, I thought I was losing it.”
Kelly cleared her throat and stood at military attention. “Ready.”
I don’t know what she was expecting.
In the many-layered darkness that clung around us, I could make out the distinct form of her shadow among all the objects’ shadows around us.
“Hey shadow,” I mouthed, hoping the stray breath was voice enough for what I didn’t want Kelly to hear. “Hope you know how this goes. Convince hers to awaken.”
As mystical rituals went, it left something to be desired. Truth be told, it wasn’t going to be me doing anything.
“Of course,” my shadow replied. “All I needed was explicit direction.”
I frowned, though not in the direction of my shadow—I couldn’t find it. Its response suggested that it was being held back by arcane rules I didn’t know about.
Could I have it run around Boston waking up every shadow it found?
Was me not giving that order the only reason it wasn’t already doing so?
My shadow slid from me, its hiding place had been pressed along my flesh like a second skin. Slithering along the floor, it wound its way around Kelly’s legs and climbed until it enveloped her.
Kelly shuddered, nodding an answer to a question I couldn’t hear.
“Don’t let it bully you,” I told her. Somehow I suspected my shadow wasn’t going to follow my instructions without embellishment.
Kelly breathed heavily. “I won’t. Just… let me handle this.”
She shuddered at my shadow’s touch along her neck, but it withdrew and slid back down, tracing every inch of her body as it receded.
As it reached her heels, I felt a snap.
There was no sound, just a sensation akin to a cracked knuckle. Kelly’s shadow writhed free, no longer tied to mimicking her movements.
With eyes wide and mouth agape, Kelly stared down at the freeform shadow that was no longer trapped in fear of the light.
In two strides, she closed the distance between us and crushed me in a giddy hug. “Oh my God! Matt, this is sick!” She let go of me and clenched her fists, giggling. “Simon’s going to shit himself in envy when he wakes up.”
I swallowed. Was this the path toward doom? I needed allies—ones with power, not just friends with a healthy dose of genre awareness. But if I woke up everyone willing to help, wouldn’t that just serve to worsen an already spreading incursion?
I resolved to limit his shadow awakenings to emergency use only. Maybe I’d wake up Simon’s or Tim’s if they were willing to possibly sell their souls—I still didn’t know all the risks. Kelly had insisted, and I needed someone. For now, I had to limit the damage, not go nuts making shadowbloods everywhere.
Taking her gently by the shoulders, I maneuvered past Kelly and toward the door. “Just don’t stay up all day. Get some practice.”
And let me get some sleep.
Chapter Fifty
They woke me before noon.
“Matt, you’ve gotta see this,” Judy said, shaking me by the shoulder.
I intended to say something along the lines of, “I’ll be the judge of that,” but it came out as an incoherent grunt.
Judy crouched low beside my air mattress. “Suffolk County Jail turned to stone.”
I rubbed my eyes. She wasn’t going away. “Was already stone.”
“No, it was brick and concrete. Today it’s quarried stone,” Judy insisted. “Police have it cordoned off. They’re relocating prisoners. Matt, they’re bringing in federal investigators.”
I propped myself up on an elbow so I could see her right-side up. “No shit?”
Judy practically towed me out of my conference room turned mini-hotel. Everyone else was already awake and gathered around Judy’s laptop. A livestream newscast was on the scene.
“We’re here live with Brian Mahoney of Quincy. Mr. Mahoney was serving a 30-day sentence that expired this morning. His release was being processed at the time of the incident.”
The reporters voice was tinny on Judy’s laptop speakers, the video grainy. But that didn’t look like the same jail I’d broken into last night. This wasn’t the Medusa transformation I’d expected from Judy’s description.
Instead of the same building with a new texture photoshopped magically onto the brick, it had been rebuilt from the ground up. It wasn’t even the smooth, expert masonry of a municipal library or bank but the rough hewn stone that hearkened back to medieval times. In place of windows, there were narrow slits. The roof line was jagged with crenellations.
“…Mr. Mahoney, can you please describe for our audience just what you saw.”
Mahoney was a dumpy sort, flaccid of cheek and wispy bald, with a shadow of beard across his jawline. He wore a faded t-shirt advertising the services of a local construction contractor who probably wasn’t too happy with the publicity.
“This guard, ya see, he’s fillin’ out forms and garbage like that, givin’ me the rundown, not lookin’ up from his papers. I’m tryin’ to keep my cool so I don’t bang a uey and get myself tossed right back in the slammer. I’m lookin’ up, down, and sideways not to stare at the guy. So I’m checkin’ out this board covered in notes all tacked up on the cork, when all’s a sudden, wham, wall’s made of stone blocks, and there’s these wanted posters all over the place, all hand drawn ‘n shit—pardon my French. Guard doesn’t see a thing until he hands me my papers and I book it oughtta there.”
I wondered what percentage of the Internet population understood a thing Mahoney said. I’m not sure he used an ‘r’ the entire way.
But the important takeaway for me was that the shadow realm was crossing over. Martinez had foreshadowed it in book five, but it hadn’t actually taken place in either the books or the TV series.
We were crossing over into unwritten territory.
“Fucking townies,” Kelly muttered. “How it is they dig up the least articulate Bostonians for international news interviews?”
“They needed an inmate who was there at the time of the change,” Tim replied, sipping from the Dunkin’ Donuts cup in his hand. Someone had made a coffee run, and I’d slept through it.
“This is bad,” Judy said. “We’re losing ground. I haven’t found anything in Martinez’s notes that tells us how to stop or reverse the incursion.”
“They say when it happened?” I asked.
“About an hour before dawn.”
I nodded. There was no chance that it had transformed in broad daylight. “Anything else?”
“What do you mean, anything else?” Tim asked. “Isn’t this enough?”
“Technically, a few nearby streetlights changed,” Judy said. “They’re glass-enclosed lanterns, but the police have put up tarps to block them from view.”
I glanced
around, noting an absence for the first time. “Where’s Simon?”
“Packie run,” Tim replied. “Figured he was safe enough, what with the shitstorm at the jail. Relax.”
He was right, of course. If there were any cops left in the city who weren’t on medieval invasion watch, they probably weren’t patrolling the state liquor stores looking for persons of interest in a trespassing case.
“Matt’s right,” Kelly said, even though I hadn’t actually stated any facts. “He’s been gone almost an hour, and he’s not answering his phone. We can’t just ditch him.”
I headed back to my tiny bedroom to look for my sneakers. “You guys come up with ideas on where he might have gone. I’ll go find Simon. He’s probably just got his hands full.”
Plus, since they hadn’t gotten any coffee for me, I could stop and grab a cup while I was out. Morning felt like waking up at dusk.
Chapter Fifty-One
I could have just gone and bought a coffee maker.
What I needed was caffeine, not an errand. Simon probably just wanted some peace and quiet to digest the weird turn his life had just taken. I got that. Not to mention that once again Boston was shrouded in an overcast sky the color of chain mail, making a search of the city a gloomy prospect.
On my way out, past the back door of Pie On Third, I gave Reggie a nod. He’d be delivering pizza upstairs soon. Kinda made me want to stick around a while, but there was only so much high-fructose caffeine I could sub for the real McCoy—coffee.
Right then, on a couple hours’ sleep, I didn’t care about brand or flavor. A McCafé was as good as a French dark roast. When a Starbucks was the first thing I came across, I decided to brush up on my pseudo-Italian and head inside.
The place was a ghost town.
One elderly guy in a tweed suit read the Boston Globe in a corner by himself as he sipped a latte. That was it for customers.
Behind the counter, two employees chatted while slurping down store-brand beverages of their own. One was a young guy with a shaved head and gauged earlobes. The other was a pretty brunette who gestured constantly as they talked. As soon as I pulled up to the counter, they turned to business mode.
